Sunday, January 31, 2010

The Game On Diet Sucks

That is all ...

Game On

Snows Froze the Toes

So, my day started ordinarily enough ... me slapping my phone until the alarm went off every 10 minutes for an hour, then rolling out of bed and heading to the bathroom to shower and get ready for work. That's when it got interesting. I turned the shower knobs and nothing came out!! EEK!! WTF?!? Nothing came out of the sink faucet or the kitchen or the downstairs bathroom either.

It was then that I realized that we neglected to leave the water dripping throughout the house (it snowed yesterday, about 5 inches and temps were in the teens). Nooooo!!! Our pipes were frozen solid!!

Thus began the frenzy to alert my coworker and my boss that all was not well in the Casa de Raz. Boss ended up being in Pennsylvania helping a friend move, and of course coworker doesn't have a key to the store, so I had to scurry to find a place to shower and get to the mall to open my store. The only place to go is my sister-in-law's, and of course she was a church. Oy. What fun. I ended up getting in at 11:30 (supposed to be here by 11), and the mall is threatening to fine the store $500 for opening late. *eyeroll* I told them to suck it, I've never opened late EVER in the last 10 years!! Anyway ...

Mr. Raz got the water running, the point of freezation was in the garage (I have to LOL because firefox isn't underlining the word freezation ... tell me that's not a real word?!), and was remedied with a space heater and a blow dryer. Whew!

Sooo, here I am, stuck at work on a snow day, and my family is all having a blast sledding. Somehow, even though I am inside and wearing my snow boots (Raz has proclaimed this a casual day at this optical retail chain ... I dare you to contradict me), my toes are freezing cold. *cry*

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Awesome No Name Blue!!

Soooo ... I was surfing Ross the other day looking for something special, and I FOUND IT! I found it in a set of 7 no name polishes with peace sign stickers on them by Simple Pleasures for $4.99. Isn't that a brand of fake Bath and Body Works crap that Walmart sells?!? Anyway, 7 polishes, 5 pastels that appear creme, 1 silver glitter, and THIS:







OK, the pics do it no justice. The indoor shots are close to being color accurate. Imagine that Crayola has decided to make nail polish, and this is a blue crayon for your nails. It is straight up B. L. U. E. BLUE. It's also a jelly. Love. I have named it Peace Be With Blue! The closest match I have found on nailgal is China Glaze Bermuda Breakaway or Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue, but they are both cremes while this is a jelly


For a no name generic product, this polish really performed well. The brush was straight up ass in a can (hello? Ratty mop?!?), but the formula made up for that. As long as I was careful, it went only where I wanted it to go. There's a leeettle VNL after 2 coats, but I prefer to have the VNL with a jelly. Peace Be With Blue! has held up well too. After 48 hours, I have a couple of teeny chips on my left thumb and that's IT. ZERO tip wear. I've been doing lots of cleaning too, dishes without gloves, etc, etc. Woot!! We have a winner! I can't wait to try out the other colors in this collection because they remind me of all the pricier collections showing up right now from Orly, China Glaze, etc. I hope they are as nice Peace Be With Blue ...


Oh, and just so you know, I get a little nutso around the full moon. Observe:


My husband thought he was gonna be funny and take a bunch of bad pics of me. Pffft. I like my blue tips peaking out from my crazy. ;)

NOTD: Avon Nocturnal

I bought this before I saw a comparison between Nocturnal and OPI You Don't Know Jaques. Turns out they are dupes! Cool. Saved me a little cash because I had intended to get YDKJ one of these days.




Le sigh. I wanted to love this one, and I do ... kind of. I love it on other hands. On me though, yeah, lobster claw. Look how RED!!

Nocturnal went on nice and smooth. It was nearly opaque in 1 coat! Dried nice and fast with a coat of SV. I love cremes, and this one is just so nice to look at. I wish it looked good on me. I do have a complaint about the wear though. If you enlarge the 2nd pic, you can see tiny chips on my index and middle. The most strenuous thing I had done since my mani at that point was sleep, apply clothes and maybe some make up. So why the premature chippage?!? By the end of my work day, they looked like hell. I followed my normal routine of 1 coat Essie Fill The Gap, 2 coats Nocturnal and 1 coat Seche Vite, so I don't know.

NOTD: Love My Nails Chrome Envy

I picked this up at Walmart several months ago ...





What to say about this polish?? Well, I think I got exactly what I paid for. The formula is iffy (kind of runny, but controllable). The brush held onto a lot more polish than it showed, so that gave me a little trouble, and the polish was wiping off when I took a second swipe at an area. I was able to smooth all that out on the 2nd coat though. It bubbled like crazy the moment I applied SV, that sucked, and it kept that denty quality where any bump will leave a mar hours, even days later. I removed it the next day.

The COLOR, on the other hand, is pretty neat. The outdoor shot is closer to the true color, which is somewhere between sage and mint green. It wasn't too brush strokey, so the chrome finish was very even. It had that "can't keep my eyes off of my nails" quality too, lol.

Overall, for the price, it's a decent polish. These retail for what? $1.28 I think?

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

NOTD: Zoya Yummy + CND Copper Shimmer

I really like this color, but it is an example of why it's hard to rely on the *big* bloggers' swatches for color representation. I bought this based on a couple of swatches I saw on a particular blog, and the color I have looks NOTHING like theirs. The pictures I've seen elsewhere show an almost turquoise cream. In reality, it's a dusty medium to light blue cream. My pics are a little dark ... the weather was nasty for days and days and days while I wore this.



As far as formula and application are concerned, Zoya got Yummy RIGHT! It is highly pigmented and smooooth to apply. Pictured is 2 coats Yummy over 1 coat Essie FTG with a coat of SV on top. I wore this mani from Thursday to Sunday with nary a chip ... I had a little nick out of my thumbnail, and that was it. Tip wear was also minimal.

Here's a picture that I HAVE ALTERED to try to show the actual polish color better. I adjusted the brightness and contrast. This is pretty coloraccurate, but please keep in mind that it's altered.



So, Sunday night I didn't have time to redo my mani, but I wanted something different so I slapped on a layer of CND Copper Shimmer.


This didn't photograph well at all, it was really pretty though. It reminded me in a way of SH Opulent Cloud. Not that the color was similar at all, but it had the same sort of look. I bet adding a couple of drops of blue to a medium grey polish and then layering with Copper Shimmer would give a very close result!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Swatch-O-Mania part 2!

I did the last 12 swatches a little differently ... 4 at a time. I was so over painting by this point, and they are collections, so it seemed right to show them side by side on the nail.


Avon's Mirror Shine collection (I am missing one color, a light pink, I didn't want it, lol)
From Index to Pinky: Peach Ice, Blaze, Polish, and Glisten






Avon Mirror Shine is a line of 5 metallic foils/chromes (I didn't buy the 5th color, Pink Ice). These babies apply great! The foils are usually thin, and these are no different. As long as you take care not to have too much polish on the brush, they are very easy to control. The great thing about foils/chromes in general, as well, is that they dry super fast and rarely need more than one coat! They also remove nice and clean. Wear is generally poor for this type of polish because it has a tendency to rub off, but I'm sure a good top coat would take care of that. I prefer not to use a top coat with these though because some of the coolness of finish is lost with the clear coat.


The next set is something special ... at least I think so.

I was in Ross the other day, just scoping it out when I ran across a set of 7 minis by Blush. I'm pretty sure Blush is just a kiddie type brand, as I have seen other sets of polish and lipgloss and fruity lotions and whatnot. All the other polish sets were just blah, but this one SCREAMED at me. I've also thrown in Cover Girl Candy Corn because there were 7 polishes in the set and 8 nails in the pics, lol, and Candy Corn really seemed to fit in. Check them out ...














How fantastic are these?!?! SQUEEEE!!! I LOVE THEM!!! Neon Jellies!!! None had names, so ... yeah, call them what you wish. ALL applied great. They started to dry right away too. In the first set of 4, both the purple and blue are 2 coats. Green and orange are 3 coats. In the 2nd set of 4, purple, red and Candy Corn (a creme, not jelly, not neon) are 2 coats and the weird yellowy greeny brown is 3 or 4 coats. That shade was the only disappointment because it looks super cool in the bottle, but kind of uck on the nail ... well, MY nail (it reminds me of some diapers I've changed during the kids' infant days, eww, lol). I bet it would look amazing on tan or brown skin though. I'll be getting a ton of use out of them over the summer for sure.

The best part about this set is that it was only 2.99!!! Well, Candy Corn I snatched up from Walgreen's for 1.89 or something like that on clearance ... The worst part is that they are minis and my Ross only had one set. :( I want a back up ... or 4.

Whatcha think??

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Swatch-O-Mania Part 1

Man, I took a picture of all my unswatched polishes yesterday, and was FREAKED OUT. I looked like this:





Soooo ... I took THREE HOURS today, and swatched TWENTY FOUR polishes!


Here's the list:

Claire's Green Matte
Maybelline Berry Persistent
Claire's Ocean Breeze
Cover Girl Luxe Lilac
Sally Hansen Salon Shrimply Divine
Spa Ritual Free Spirit
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Crushed
Sally Hansen Salon Mangoes Loco
Color Club Lazer Pink
Color Club Amp'd Up
Color Club Power Play
Color Club Limelight
Avon Mirror Shine Peach Ice
Avon Mirror Shine Blaze
Avon Mirror Shine Polish
Avon Mirror Shine Glisten
Blush no name lime
Blush no name dark purple
Blush no name orange
Blush no name blue
Blush no name magenta/purple
Blush no name snot yellow
Blush no name red
Cover Girl Candy Corn

Claire's Green Matte







This is NICE. ONE COAT is all you see here. Green Matte will probably be a go to for me if I'm in a hurry. Easy application, smooth, not too thick, wasn't drying on me too fast. No complaints whatsoever.


Maybelline Berry Persistent






OK, this was photographing a couple shades lighter and a little on the orange side ... It's definitely a darker burgundy leaning red. This belonged to my mother-in-law I believe, as it's not a shade that I would *ever* buy. It's been chilling in the bathroom forever though (MIL lives with us), so I scooped it up, lol. Anyway, I was surprised to find out that I actually really like this color!! I didn't have any trouble with application ... it started to dry right away, and it could be a one coater as well! 2 fingers in these pics have 2 coats and 2 only have 1 coat. Can you tell which ones???


Claire's Ocean Breeze






What a mess. I don't like it. First off, none of the other colors come through! It's just that top layer of blue. Second, well, as far as application is concerned, I think the pictures speak for themselves. Uck. And WHAT the hell do you do when it starts separating?!? Look how nasty it looks in the bottle there. I'm over it. Layered polishes = FAIL.


Cover Girl Luxe Lilac









Preeeeeetty ... I really like this one despite being apprehensive about it. It was super easy to apply, nice thin formula, opaque in 2 coats. I have no complaints whatsoever. I really like that it has an almost jelly appearance. The color of Luxe Lilac is similar to Zoya Zara (no where NEAR dupes though), so might be a nice alternative if you can't get Zoya.


Sally Hansen Shrimply Divine











OK, here's another one that wouldn't photograph well. It's not this light. Much much brighter and a little darker, actually. Another polish that went on like a dream, perfect in 2 coats. These are on clearance all over the place right now. I plan on scooping up every color I can find. Very very nice.


Spa Ritual Free Spirit







It looks so pretty, right? Too bad it was a huge pain to apply. This polish is supposed to be a sheer, but the first coat goes on SO streaky, it'd be impossible to actually wear as a sheer. Pictured is 3 coats, and it could have used one more to be completely even/opaque. I wore this once before, and it held up REALLY well. I don't think it's worth the premium price tag though. I picked this up at Marshall's for $3 on clearance though, so I'm happy. I'd pick this brand up again on sale like that, but won't be paying full price.


Sally Hansen Crushed








Look how dry my fingers are getting in these pics, LOL! Since I was swatching like a maniac, I didn't moisturize in between polish removal, so from here on out, you'll see scaly skin, lol.

Here's another color I was pleasantly surprised with. A medium reddish orange shimmer, the pic is a little lighter and redder than the true shade. Nice formula, easy to apply, opaque in 2 coats. I have had trouble with dry time with this brand in the past though, and I didn't actually wear it long enough for it to dry ...


Sally Hansen Salon Mangoes Loco







I'm pretty sure this is another one that photographed much lighter than it looks in reality. This is 2 coats, and there's still a little VNL. When I wear this as a NOTD, I will add a third coat. I have no formula complaints at all. Nice and thin, easy to control, etc, etc.



OK, I'm going to finish up with the Color Club Neons I picked up at Five Below last week. I don't know WHY I'm even bothering to post these because they came out TERRIBLE in the pics. Colors aren't even CLOSE to what they really look like. Oh well. I painted the nails, and took the pics, so you're gonna look at them!


Color Club Lazer Pink









This is SO much brighter IRL. It's a cool, shocking pink. I can't remember if this is 2 or 3 coats. I had minor application issues, but nothing upsetting. Poshnail has a slightly better representation of this color (and Power Play).


Color Club Power Play







I. LOVE. THIS. COLOR. Like I said, the pics are WAY off. It's darker, brighter, awesomer ... Great application. Love it. Check out the Poshnail link above, her pics are way better.


Color Club Amp'd Up




Yet again, came out way too light in the pics. Amp'd up is an awesome, BRIGHT reddish orange. Here's a better pic: NAILGAL


Color Club Limelight









Do I need to say it? Yeah, color not accurate. It's SO bright IRL. Hawt. Here's a good pic at Nailgal. (and OMG, fingers so dry and scaly!!)


Hope you enjoyed! It'll prob take me another day or 2 to get the rest up ... stay tuned!